Thursday, November 10, 2016

A Difference in Values

There has been a lot
of talk about how 'divided' America is as evidenced by the election.
Many in the media have tried to take the high road by reaching across
that divide and advising those disappointed with the election outcome
to do some reflection. They suggest more engagement with the other side.

I think this is
sound advice, but there is a more basic principle I think people
should consider.

Thomas Sowell I
believe was the one who wrote that, often intense political debates
really just come down to two people having different preferences.
People argue until they are blue in the face offering facts,
rebuttals, references, all with the tacit assumption that their point
of view is the 'right' one. Progressives say that their world view is
informed by 'facts', therefore it is ok for the media to be biased
and write off Trump voters as misinformed. Many Trump supporters feel
the same about liberals. They see progressives as ignorant.

But in reality the
divide may not so much be about 'facts' but rather moral principles.
Progressives and conservatives are two groups of people who simply
prefer different things. It is not a difference in understanding, but
a difference in values.

In any discussion it
is important to determine what sort of disagreement you are
encountering. Differences in understanding can be worked out through
dialogue, research, and compromise. Differences in values are often
irreconcilable.

I'll use an example
from the tech world.

A coworker and I may
have different opinions about how to set up a Cassandra database
cluster. He might think we should use a very large number of servers
and I might think we should use fewer. This is not a difference in
values but rather a difference in understanding. His understanding of
Cassandra is that it is best to use lots of cheap small nodes. My
understanding is that, while you can get some performance gain from
using lots of nodes, there are diminishing returns at a certain
point, and the overhead of managing lots of servers is not worth it.

There are two
important things about this sort of debate. 1. Neither of us is
really emotionally invested in it. Our sense of identity is not
embedded in how many Cassandra nodes we launch. 2. There is something
close to an objective right answer. Depending on our use-case and
data size, there are objectively better Cassandra architectures.
Because of this, if we are both rational, we can argue, test, and
eventually reach a resolution. This is how differences in
understanding should generally end.

But what if we have
a difference in values? Lets stay with a simple tech example: I
prefer to use Vim, my coworker swears by Emacs. Is one editor
objectively better than the other? Well, not really, no, though they
have different features that might be better for certain things.
What's more, both of us may have some emotional investment in our
opinion. I have been a Vim guy for many years and find it hard to
seriously consider other editors. My coworker feels the same about
Emacs.

So I don't bother
trying to convert him. I am about as interested in getting him to use
Vim as I am in arguing with people who think Empire Strikes Back
is better than A New
Hope, or people who think Pepsi
tastes better than Coke. Sure I might argue about such things for fun
but ultimately I see no point in trying to change people's subjective
opinions. Whatever triggers a dopamine hit in your brain chemistry is
your business.

And
so we come back to the problem of politics. The divide between
liberals / conservatives / nationalists / libertarians / etc –
ultimately it is often a difference in values. Progressives prefer to
live in a more secular society that celebrates diversity, gender
equality, alternative sexualities, and encourages the government to
manage more of the economy. Conservatives prefer to live in more
traditional societies that support gender norms, a homogeneous
culture, nationalism, and a more capitalist economy.

Neither
viewpoint is objectively better than the other. We could try to
scientifically argue that one vision leads to a better economy. We
could try to argue that one vision is more socially 'fair', though
even that would be steeped in specific values. We could try to make a
factual case for one
vision over the other, but in the end, some people might just prefer the other one anyway.

So
where does that leave us? In a society of 300 million there are no
one-size-fits-all solutions. Neither
side can easily change the values of the members of the other side.
People's values evolve gradually through technological change,
emerging consensus, and often in response to national crises. In the
mean time, as I said in my previous post, I think Americans need to
work toward rebuilding a shared culture.

Personally
I think the founders of America had the right idea withthe tenth amendment. In a
nation as big as America, federalism is the only practical answer for
keeping people of different belief systems happy. Let the
progressives be progressive, and let the conservatives be
conservative. In fact that's something all Americans could get
behind.